


Pulse

by fabrega



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Black Panther (2018) Spoilers, M/M, Movie Spoilers, Podfic Available, Spoilers, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 12:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: M'Baku has heard about the kings of Wakanda for his whole life.





	Pulse

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [脉搏](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13792233) by [Lovesss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovesss/pseuds/Lovesss)



> Contains spoilers all the way through for Black Panther. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
> 
> Thanks a million to Chelsey, for the sanity-read and for making this happen. <3

M'Baku has heard about the kings of Wakanda for his whole life. The Jabari _know_ the kings of Wakanda--know how they've been treated over the years by Wakanda and its kings, know how unlikely this is to change in a country that has survived by its traditions. They are villains in the Jabari stories, and when news comes of the death of the king, the Jabari do not mourn. M'Baku does not mourn; he _prepares_. He watches the footage of the Black Panther that his men brought back from Europe, then watches it again. He studies the way T'Challa moves, the way he stands, the way he fights, commits his shape and his skill to memory. They will be fighting, when they fight, as men, as equals--but, M'Baku tells himself, this is the king of Wakanda. It does not hurt to be prepared.

When the challenge comes, M'Baku is a little surprised by how _small_ the king of Wakanda seems. He stands stripped of his powers, stripped to the waist, a shield on one arm, grief heavy on his shoulders. The thought rises unbidden: the howling loss M'Baku had felt when his own father had died. Succession had been easy for him, as easy as it could be with the hollow, empty feeling in his chest, and for a fleeting moment he looks at T'Challa and feels something like pity. It is gone in an instant, though, replaced with resolve. M'Baku _will_ have the throne, and the things the Jabari know about the kings of Wakanda will need to be rewritten.

He makes the challenge.

.

He yields.

T'Challa _lets_ him yield, lets him return to his people. From someone else it would be a kindness, but there is no kindness between the Jabari and the kings of Wakanda, and so M'Baku views it as it is: a debt that will need repaying, a favor that will need to be returned. 

He wonders, as he and his tribesmen return to their lands, what shape of indignity this favor might take. The Jabari and M'Baku owe him much, and there are many things the king of Wakanda could ask of them.

He wonders, as they return to Jabari lands, what it will take to forget the feeling of T'Challa's hands on him, the press of their bodies together, the sight of his face.

.

They bring T'Challa in from the river. His body is broken, barely clinging to life, and the fisherman who found him asks aloud what could have done this to the mighty, undefeatable king of Wakanda.

 _Tradition_ , M'Baku thinks. _Tradition did this._

Without hesitating, M'Baku orders him put on ice, orders the Jabari healers to do what they can. It isn't until later that he realizes that this is a strategic move: a life for a life, a debt repaid. In the moment, he is not thinking strategically. He sees T'Challa's face and something twists in his chest. It's the same longing, wistful something he's refused to name all these days since the challenge, the same desperate, gasping something that's crept through his dreams all these nights.

The healers tell him there's nothing they can do, that all that can be done is to hold him here in stasis, to wait and hope for a miracle. The Jabari spies bring news from the Wakandan capital: the outsider last seen crossing the Wakandan border now sits on the throne, and the miracle that T'Challa needs grows ever more unlikely.

M'Baku orders the healers out, sits heavily on the ground beside the injured Wakandan king--no, not king anymore. Just a man. M'Baku reaches out a careful hand, traces along T'Challa's cheekbones, lets his fingers drag through his beard along the curve of his jaw, the pad of his thumb ghosting along the line of T'Challa's lips. 

He touches T'Challa's neck, feels the reedy flutter of a pulse there, unbearably slow. He thinks about the challenge he'd made for the throne and how much fight had been in them both that day. It would be so easy to kill T'Challa now, to pull him from the ice and let death take him, even to move his hand just so and _squeeze_.

He leans in close, and T'Challa does not stir.

.

The miracle arrives, in unlikely form--an American, a spy, what's left of the Wakandan royal family. They offer M'Baku the heart-shaped herb, and for a moment, he thinks about accepting. The power could be his. The White Gorilla could take Wakanda back from this outsider and rule _all_ the tribes. He could--

Then he thinks about T'Challa, about the slow beat of his heart beneath M'Baku's fingers and the way M'Baku's own heart speeds up in turn. T'Challa needs a miracle, and one has shown up on their doorstep; if the spy is telling the truth, a second is unlikely to appear.

They resurrect T'Challa, the king of Wakanda given new life in Jabari lands. M'Baku's debt is repaid, and he makes sure that T'Challa knows it. T'Challa asks to speak to him alone, and meets his eyes and smiles, and M'Baku thinks, surprised, that maybe it _was_ kindness that spared his life.

What difference does that make? What difference should it?

His fingers itch to touch T'Challa again, to feel the pulse throbbing solidly in his throat, close enough to hear the breath heaving loud and strong in his chest. But there is no time for sentimentality. There never is.

.

When everything is over, when the Jabari have ridden to the rescue of the king of Wakanda, when T'Challa sits again on the throne, M'Baku stops to take a breath and regroup. They'd lost men, and there will be mourning. Not all of his men were happy to put their lives on the line for a Wakanda that did not care about them and showed no sign of changing, and he expects that there will be trouble when he returns to the Jabari.

He does not expect an invitation to the palace, from T'Challa himself. In all the annals of Jabari history, M'Baku does not know of such a thing.

He accepts.

There is a dinner, at which he seems to be the guest of honor. (The food, M'Baku realizes partway through, is all vegetarian.) After dinner, T'Challa invites him to the throne room, sends away his guards, stands close to M'Baku and explains his plan to share Wakanda's riches and knowledge with the world. T'Challa waves his hands as he talks and smiles excitedly, and M'Baku finds that he's suddenly _angry_. He's angry that it's this easy. He's angry that he's allowed his feelings to so much get the better of him. He's angry that T'Challa is _here_ , within his reach and yet still so far away.

He's angry that any of this ever happened.

T'Challa stops talking, looks down at M'Baku's clenched fists, up at his face. "I did not mean to upset you," T'Challa says, his voice quiet and earnest. "Wakanda will of course come first for the Jabari, sharing with your people--"

"No," M'Baku says. He reaches out and grabs T'Challa's throat, tightens his fingers until he can feel their twin pulses, both racing.

"You would be dead before I was," T'Challa says. Out of the corner of his eye, M'Baku sees a flash of red, then another--the Dora Milaje, ready to defend their king.

"I'm not going to hurt you," M'Baku says, his voice low. T'Challa does not look like he believes him, but he motions to the guards, and the red in M'Baku's peripheral vision vanishes.

"Then what?" T'Challa asks.

 _Then what_ indeed. M'Baku yields again, withdraws and turns to go. His people need him, and he knows better than to think that there is place for him here--

"I owe you my kingdom," T'Challa says behind him. "The Jabari turned the tide of that fight. Without you..."

M'Baku's hands clench into fists again. "You owe me nothing. There is nothing to owe." He feels the touch of T'Challa's hand on his arm, and he turns.

"Then let it not be a debt. Let it be a kindness, returned with kindness." T'Challa reaches up and touches M'Baku's face, and the twisting thing in M'Baku's chest finally unravels. _Want_ , he names it, and _need_ \--the things he sees on T'Challa's face too.

T'Challa rises on his toes, tips forward and kisses M'Baku. It's gentler even than he thought possible, and M'Baku forgets to breathe for a moment before tilting his head down to meet T'Challa and kissing him back. He sets his hands against T'Challa's sides. He knows T'Challa's shape from studying the videos from Europe, T'Challa's form from the time T'Challa had spent near-dead under his watchful eye in the Jabari lands--and finally, finally, he touches him. He's waited, and he's wanted, and now...

"A kindness, or a thing you want?" M'Baku asks. He has to make sure. He doesn't want T'Challa's pity. He wants T'Challa's resolve.

T'Challa's smile is wicked. "Why can't it be both?" he asks, and M'Baku pulls him closer and kisses him again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Pulse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308793) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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